Q1 W.Farrimond made 174 for Minor Co's v Ox U in 1934. One single scoring shot is (probably) unique in fcc - and exceptionally rare in all cricket. Why?

7 runs - a no ball being hit for six, has been done a few times.
8 runs - is not unique e.g. Hendren (England) and John Wright (NZ) .. ran four, plus four overthrows to the fence.
9, 10, 11 runs - can't find anything .. Maynard (Glamorgan) faced 5 wides from Sidebottom (Yorkshire), then hit the next delivery for six, but those 11 runs aren't off one scoring shot.

Is the answer one of these:-

• 9 runs .. Farrimond ran 5 (it was a long boundary, fieldsmen were slow runners) , plus 4 overthrows (either run or thrown to the fence).
  
• 10 runs .. as above, but on a no ball.
  
• 10 runs .. Farrimond ran 6, plus 4 overthrows.
  
• 11 runs .. as above, but on a no ball.

Gtho4

Q3. Completely correct. Fred Stocks is the only player to have made a century on debut and to have taken a wicket with his first ball in first class cricket.

As an aside I think Paul collingwood is the only other player to come close, out for 91 on debut having taken the wicket of Capel with his first ball in fcc in 1996.

As for Q1 - you're right in thinking it's about runs scored but you're going the wrong way. Think of shrinking scores.

he got negative runs?

Farrimond was a wicket-keeper .. the 174 may be a diversion
the answer may be on these pages; but I can't see it:-

www.cricketarchive.co.uk Oxford University v Minor Counties, 1934
www.cricket.org University Match, 1934 - Oxford University v Minor Counties

The 174 is a bit of a diversion - Manvinder is on the right track though - how exactly would you lose runs?

too many short runs?

Yes-ish. Farrimond hit a three that turned out to only be a one. Both umpires ended up signalling a short run. Thought to be the only instance in fcc.

That leaves the Minor Co's championship question .....

wag:

there was a set minimum number of games that had to be played by the counties to decide the title .. and that requisite number wasn't played

it is sort of related to the number of games ... but your not on the right tack....in those days it didn't matter how many you played your points were averaged (there's a clue)

hey everybody..
what happened .....no more replies
i think the mashers have got enough time on this question..

yes, oleg, I give up. You've given us enough time.

Q2. Bad maths.

An error occurred in the (late) reporting of the result of the Yorkshire v Staffordshire game at Sheffield. After a rain disrupted game Yorkshire were given the points for a win in a single innings match, rather than the points for a lead on first innings.
as the Minor Co's all played an irregular number of games the total points were averaged - Norfolk were top, followed by Yorks 2nd XI(average 71.66) & Wilts (av 70.00).
as yorks were 2nd they were entitled to challenge the top team in a "champion" match. This they duly did, going on to beat norfolk.
when wisden came to compile all the results & averages for the season they discovered that Yorks 2nd xi should have finished with an average points score of 68.00 (due to the @#%$-up) which would've meant that wilts should have challenged norfolk.
the secretary of the Minor Co's at the time immediately tendered his resignation. This was refused by the MC's at their annual AGM. It was agreed that the season would remain "undecided" rather than play some subsequent challenge match.
the scores of the Yorks v Norfolk challenge match are included in all mc stats.

Well, first time we were beaten. I guess there's always a first time.

Now. can an admin or mod lock this thread and we can continue this in another post ? This is taking too long to load. We will continue this in another thread.

[ threads are locked after 300 posts, which is half a dozen pages ]

This thread shouldn' take ages to load - what view preferences are you using? With the default setting of 50 posts a page you you should have this alongside the name of the thread:-
( Pages 1 2 3 4 all )
From there I select a single page. Are you selecting "all"?

What are the team scores at the moment?

It was Fosse's idea to continue this in another thread. I know there are 50 posts but that is making the confusion. All the posts are taking so long to load on each page.

~ ~ ~

[ if it's still slow, change you default view from 50 to 25 ]

this thread continues here:- The Cricket Challenge (continued)